Hemostatic valves are used in a wide variety of minimally invasive and conventional surgical procedures. For example, laparoscopic and arthroscopic surgical procedures are often performed through trocar or introducer assemblies which include hemostatic valves. After a trocar or introducer sheath is inserted to provide access to a body target site, surgical instruments, tools, guidewires, implantable devices or diagnostic instruments are inserted into and withdrawn from a hemostatic sealing valve located at a proximal end of the trocar or introducer. The hemostatic valve generally prevents fluid from inadvertently leaving or entering the body target site through the trocar or introducer. As advanced surgical procedures have emerged, hemostatic valves have faced more stringent demands. For example, a wider range of device profiles and a greater number of devices are often passed through a single hemostatic valve.
Current hemostatic valves generally fall into two basic categories: passive and active. To form the desired fluid tight seal, a passive valve generally relies on a resilient sealing body being deformed by the device as it is inserted through the valve. An active valve includes a means to move a sealing body into contact with the traversing device.
A wide variety of active and passive hemostatic valves have been proposed. While these structures have met with varying degrees of success and acceptance, they generally have suffered from common disadvantages. For example sealing bodies (whether passive or active) which seal effectively over a wide range of device cross-sectional profiles tend to impose excess friction on at least some sizes of traversing devices. Active devices which seal effectively over a wide range of device cross-sectional profiles have the disadvantage of requiring extended actuation travel (i.e. thumb or finger motion) along with excessive time to fully open and close the sealing device.
It would be desirable to provide an improved hemostatic valve for use in endovascular, laparoscopic and other surgical procedures. Such a valve should preferably seal over a wide range of device sizes, cross-sectional profiles and lengths without imposing excess friction onto the device. In addition, such a valve should preferably be actuated with a finger or thumb motion and be able to be fully opened or closed in a minimal amount of time and without requiring extended actuation travel.